Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Diversity of the innate immune receptor TLR2 in field voles (Microtus agrestis)

Linfeldt, David (2021) MOBK01 20202
Degree Projects in Molecular Biology
Popular Abstract
Field voles fight against pathogens

Why did we study field voles (Microtus agrestis)? Well, field voles can tell us how the immune system develops in wild mammals. The immune system develops because pathogens develop, it’s like an arms race. If pathogens increase their infectivity, the field voles need to increase their immune defense. If not, the species will not survive.

How do field voles protect themselves against pathogens? One key component for the protection against pathogens is the Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2). This TLR2 protein is located on the immune cells that can detect pathogens which then can lead to an immune response and protect them from nasty pathogens. Without TLR2 the field voles would not be able to detect... (More)
Field voles fight against pathogens

Why did we study field voles (Microtus agrestis)? Well, field voles can tell us how the immune system develops in wild mammals. The immune system develops because pathogens develop, it’s like an arms race. If pathogens increase their infectivity, the field voles need to increase their immune defense. If not, the species will not survive.

How do field voles protect themselves against pathogens? One key component for the protection against pathogens is the Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2). This TLR2 protein is located on the immune cells that can detect pathogens which then can lead to an immune response and protect them from nasty pathogens. Without TLR2 the field voles would not be able to detect pathogens and would not be able to mount immune responses. The question is then, do all field voles have the same type of TLR2?

How to find out if field voles have different variants of TLR2
To study field voles, one would need to catch them first. This was done with live traps called Ugglan special nr1. Skin biopsy of their ears was taken, and DNA were then extracted and sequenced. With these sequences we could look at how the TLR2 diversity differentiated between different individuals of field voles while also comparing with bank voles.

Differences in the sequences were found which indicated that the different individuals did not have the same types of TLR2. We found that there were different field vole individuals that had different types of TLR2. The amount of diversity that we found in field voles was higher than other mammals that have been studied, the only mammal that has been studied yet that has higher diversity are the bank voles.

There could be several different causes to why field voles have acquired these different types of TLR2. One possible explanation could be that Borrelia infections by Borrelia afzelii could have acted as a selective agent where certain types of TLR2 have better survivability. The diversities between the types are located in different regions of TLR2. This could affect different functions such as the ability to detect pathogens or signal that there is an infection.






Supervisor: Lars Råberg
Examensarbete 15hp 2021
Biological institution, Lund University
Examensarbetsämne: molekylärbiologi (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Linfeldt, David
supervisor
organization
course
MOBK01 20202
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
language
English
id
9040437
date added to LUP
2021-02-15 11:01:17
date last changed
2021-02-15 11:01:17
@misc{9040437,
  author       = {{Linfeldt, David}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Diversity of the innate immune receptor TLR2 in field voles (Microtus agrestis)}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}